


Price of Your Greed

by exarite



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Blood and Violence, F/M, Gangs, ShikaSaku Hanami 2019
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 17:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18254300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exarite/pseuds/exarite
Summary: Sakura doesn’t fight. Not anymore. She’s moved on to bigger, brighter, better things.Shikamaru knows better.::Modern AU. Sakura comes from the bad part of town. She gets to put her past behind her when the Naras sponsor her medical degree, but she should have known that the past will always find a way to haunt her.





	Price of Your Greed

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from Blood//Water. written for ShikaSakuWeek Hanami 2019

Sakura doesn't fight. Not anymore. She's put that past behind her and moved on to bigger, brighter, better things. (By whose standards?)

Anyone who sees her now wouldn't think of Team 7's Sakura, no. Team 7's Sakura of long ago had her hair sheared short, bandages over her wrists and her knuckles, and tank tops that showed off the strength of her arms, the muscles she had worked so very hard on. Team 7's Sakura stood with the greats and kept up, her mouth split into a bloody, triumphant grin.

And before that, Team 7's Sakura was weak, a childish thing with long hair and an even longer list of things to complain and cry about. She wore dresses and cared about how she looked, what Sasuke would think of her, how best to get him to love her.

Sakura now?

She supposes she's a mix of the two. No longer weak and childish, but no longer bloody from street fights, no longer forced to be tough in the bad side of town. No longer running along with bad crowds and trying to prove her worth.

Her hands at the end of the day are still red, her grin triumphant, but those come from saving people's lives now at the hospital. Not from taking them, not anymore. Her hair isn't shaved close to her head, but it isn't all the way down to her waist. It rests comfortably just below her shoulders, often pinned to the top of her head.

She's different.

Shikamaru comes up behind her, his hand warm at her back, and Sakura leans into it. She tilts her face up at him, like a sunflower to the sun, and smiles.

He nods his head at her. "I'll walk you home," he offers, motioning with his other hand to the door, and Sakura notices then the cigarette in his fingers, red-tipped and half-smoked. 

"We're in the hospital, Shikamaru," she scolds half-heartedly, and Shikamaru's lips purse.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles, pushing her onwards by the small of her back. She could break his arm right now, twist it until he cries, lean on the bone until they grind together and snap. She doesn't. She lets him push her out the door.

"It's dark now," Shikamaru says. He inhales a drag from his cigarette, and it lights up. Not enough for her to see past the shadows on his face, but enough to tease. "You shouldn't stay so late, you know it isn't safe. Your shift ends earlier than this."

Sakura feels her lips twist, and she lets out a soft laugh. He really knows nothing about the Sakura of before. She knows the night isn't safe. After all, she used to be the one that made it unsafe. Her, Naruto, and Sasuke, and again, Sakura wonders where the two of them are now. If they're living bigger, brighter, better lives like they had promised each other.

She wonders what they'd think if they saw her now. If they saw her how Shikamaru sees her. A soft thing with soft hands. With strength, yes, but in mind and determination, in confidence and feminine wiles. He'd never think that she used to be part of the toughest gang in the streets, and Sakura isn't inclined to tell him.

Let him think her soft. Let him think her simply strong and beautiful in the ways that are comfortable to him. He's lived with money and prestige all his life, Sakura's old ways have no place in them.

"How was your day?" Sakura asks. They keep their voices hushed as they walk along the streets. He’s right, it isn't safe this late at night, but the’y’re in the good part of town. Nothing to fear. No hobbling drunkards, no rough men and women who sneer at them as they walk by. Just the dim light of the streetlights, the sounds of people at night.

"A drag," Shikamaru sighs. "Too many meetings, too many people talking about nothing."

"How cruel," Sakura teases. "Didn't get to nap today, love?"

He makes a face at her, and Sakura laughs, light and free. She nudges his side and relaxes. The night is cold, but Shikamaru is warm. He's radiating heat like a furnace beside her, and Sakura basks in it.

"There's a party this Friday, some other big names from the other side of the city," Shikamaru tells her. He sounds annoyed already, and Sakura smiles. "I'd rather not go, but if I had to bear through it, I'd rather do it with you. "

Sakura huffs. "People in your social circle don't really like me," she says, and it's true. She has no pedigree, no fancy last name that marks her as one of them. She's trash, effectively, even if she's a surgeon now and working her way up the hospital. They don't care how many lives she's saved. She wonders if they'd care about how many lives she's taken.

"You're a sponsor of the Nara," Shikamaru sighs. It's an age-old argument between them. It started when the Nara took Sakura in and sponsored her medical studies, and now, 7 years later, they still go through this exact same thing. "I like you, woman, isn't that enough?"

Sakura feels her face heat, and in annoyance at her own embarrassment, she elbows him way too hard. He drops his cigarette and curses. They stop, and Sakura watches as he steps on it, extinguishing the red light. Their pause is enough.

"Hands up," a voice snarls, and Sakura stills. Beside her, Shikamaru looks up, his hand coming up to push her behind him. Sakura stands her ground, her eyes narrowed on the poorly dressed man with the knife held out in front of him.

"Give me your money," the man says, stepping forward. Shikamaru takes a step back and lets out a low hiss when Sakura doesn't follow. "Give me all your money, and no one will get hurt."

The light from the streetlamp hits his face, and Sakura can see now the dazed, wild look in his eye. He's high, she guesses, and when he takes another step forward and sloppily waves his knife, she knows it's true.

"Give me!" he demands. 

"Wait," Shikamaru says calmly, reaching into his pocket to his wallet. He does it too fast, maybe, because the other man is immediately spooked, his knife glinting as he stabs toward them.

Shikamaru yells as Sakura moves, but Sakura doesn't hear him through the age-old, still familiar adrenaline racing through her. She catches the mugger's forearm with her own, ducking underneath the knife, and she twists.

The man yowls as his arm is yanked, his grip loosening on the knife. Sakura catches it, right on the hilt of the blade, and her fingers get sliced by the part of the blade nearest to the end. She isn't thinking anymore of how Shikamaru sees her, or of the soft thing she's supposed to be now. It's pure instinct that makes her bring it up to the guy's throat, her teeth bared, her own pupils blown open wide.

"Sakura," Shikamaru says, and Sakura freezes. She stares the mugger down, his eyes wide with fear, neither of them breathing. The knife against his throat is dull, she realizes, because it's pressed right up to his skin and yet he isn't bleeding. It doesn't matter though, Sakura knows that with enough force, it will stab well enough. A rusty blade can still do wonders if pushed.

"Sakura," Shikamaru repeats, and the waver in his voice finally registers. She pushes the man away from her and he stumbles away, falling to the ground. He just barely picks himself up before he scrambles away, tail tucked behind his legs.

She turns to him, her eyes wide. She's trembling, she realizes. Not from fear, but from the pure thrill of adrenaline. She feels like a junkie rediscovering a drug, high from bloody victory.

Shikamaru looks at her, and Sakura wonders if this time he sees. If he can see past the soft sheep pelt she had wrapped herself in, to the wild, feral wolf inside of her. She's had seven years to perfect her façade, but she's lived seventeen years in the bad side of town, and that part of her, is apparently, still alive and thriving.

"Come here," Shikamaru says, and Sakura follows. He grabs her hand, and Sakura realizes she's bleeding, right from where she misjudged in catching the knife. He says nothing for a moment, only gingerly takes the knife away from her and dropping it to the side. He reaches into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief, and gently, he dabs at the shallow slice. Sakura waits for him to pass judgement.

"Have you had your tetanus shots?" Shikamaru says instead, and Sakura surprises herself by laughing. She can't stop once she starts, until she's bent over and laughing hysterically into the deep night.

It takes everything in her to stop.

She looks up at Shikamaru and bares her teeth. She thinks it must pass as a smile, because Shikamaru smiles back at her, even if his own is small and cautious. Good, she thinks. He should be cautious.

Shikamaru straightens up once he's finished wrapping her hand. He tilts his head at her, intelligent eyes assessing. He's one of the smartest people she knows, and she wonders what he's thinking now, what he must be making of the proof in front of him.

"There's a lot you're not telling me," Shikamaru says mildly. He's said that before. "There's a lot I don't know about you."

"That's true," Sakura says. She says nothing else.

"But I think I know more than you think I know," Shikamaru continues, voice calm. He steps away, and Sakura hand falls in between them. He looks away, back down the street where Sakura lives in. A classy apartment, a far cry from the hovel she used to live in with Naruto and Sasuke.

Abruptly, Shikamaru says, "You should really go this Friday."

"Oh?" Sakura says, confused at the non-sequitur. Shikamaru only nods, his eyes half-lidded.

"I think there's some people there you'd be interested in meeting.” 

**Author's Note:**

> ljsadlkasjdlsa im so late to this im SORRY, the time completely slipped by me.


End file.
